Upright Entasis
by pronker
Summary: Ferus Olin treats his Princess in the way that she deserves.


Title: Upright Entasis

Author: pronker

Rating: M

Characters: Princess Leia Organa, Ferus Olin, mentions of Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi

Disclaimer: I am not George Lucas, make no profit on this fanfiction, and all characters and settings of Star Wars belong to Lucas.

Summary: Ferus treats his Princess the way that she deserves.

A/N: This is an intertrilogy series in its second and final part, following "Male Gaze", "Aphrodisiac", "Getting To Entasis", and "Novel Entasis." The first part consisted of "Song of Myself" and "Spring Fever."

IOIOIOIOIO

Leia assumed she was being seductive, Ferus could tell. He allowed her to think so, settling in among the clover, an arm around her back. With Roan, he had certainly known better kisses, yet her eagerness warmed his heart and he responded with small busses to match hers. It would be pleasant enough if this is all that they did, slowing and then stopping, a final embrace and then separate into their cocoons. But he wanted to be young again and taste everything, with no holding back. He Sensed that he was near to attaining the Force connection that he wanted, that he _knew_ he could reach with her, with her help. He felt it was important, remembering his vision of two months ago. Leia was the key to attaining the connection, confound it all. He pushed for more of her, panting.

There ought to be a ritual in Jedi life for this. Ferus thought there _might_ have been, if the Order could have survived Order 66. If any remaining Jedi formed an enclave to train new Jedi, he hoped all would have been forgotten about limiting attachments, whether they manifested in marriages or in liaisons lasting longer than one night. A ritual would have formalized everything. Ferus used to like them, and when Master Siri laced her hands through his hair to straighten his Knight's tail or thread yet another Merit Bead onto his braid, he floated aloft for hours, though outwardly calm. Today's ritual would have been more like a First Braiding.

Then Leia slid her hand under his tunic and he forgot the past. He braced her neck with one hand and kissed her with more warmth than he had felt in nearly a decade, cradling her head in the crook of his arm. He traced her waist with an unhurried hand as he allowed her to set the pace.

Leia lifted her hips, capturing his hand to guide it under her coutourier's creation. "Talk botany to me, Fess. I like it."

"Microgametophytes. Palynology. Cone," whispered Ferus as he slicked one hand through the leg opening of her undergarment. The breeze rose, fell and then steadied to a pleasant caress, as did he. "Anemophilous." He wet a finger in her, swirling. "Colpate."

She sighed. He slid in another finger and twisted it as he kissed her. "Sulcate."

Leia whimpered.

"Intine," Ferus breathed.

Leia pushed back his dangling forelock. Ferus felt her gathering the silver swatch in her fingers as she yanked his head to where she wanted it. Could she feel the impress of his touch as he withdrew his hand from her encircling heat? He trembled as he crawled downward.

There was a pollen count in the air that Obi-Wan could never have handled without sneezing, but Ferus was not Obi-Wan. He inhaled, scenting the pollen which was, after all, a wellspring of new life for the young zaela tree. The Force sang around him, urging him onward, secretive about its own agenda. Ferus was crystal clear about his.

He would make it good for her, too. He tugged the undergarment's frillery down and off. He lifted each calf in turn, pressing a kiss to its swell. It wasn't until he smelled her that he got harder than a duranium-core meteorite. With a groan, Ferus threw himself flat between her legs, kissing, spreading her, inhaling, licking. Leia jerked when he delved deeper, sucking in her petals in a frenzy until she shuddered, relaxed and open in the Force, her face showing no memory that he was the one whose irritating actions furrowed those delectable brows many times. He would have liked to have seen a smile at this point. Ah, well. She was a novice, and novices this serious did not smile often.

He sat up, ignoring her imperious whine, inverting the skirt of the dress which he had admired as he stretched the knitted thing over her head until he peeled down its sleeves to remove it at last, baring her lacy underbodice to his gaze. There was an embroidered haffa-blossom at the vee of her cleavage. _Plants, I can't get away from plants. _From an obscure impulse to spare her dignity, he left on the sleeveless, delicate camisole. This bred a pause, a stopping point as he took her all in, from painted toenails to fan of hair. This was Ferus' fantasy come to life, that she hold still and learn. The Force hummed around him, acknowledging his purpose, supporting steadily as he allowed it to drive him onward. He shoved thoughts of Bail's and Anakin's reactions to the farthest reaches of his mind.

When had he undressed? He couldn't remember. Returning to Leia's bounty, Ferus slid in a finger once more, lips pursed around her nub. He ducked his head aside quickly as she thrashed, twisting her legs to one side and clamping down on his hand. Now she was close to completion, eyes closed as she arched, but he teased his hand away from her once more. _Not yet, Laylay._ He positioned himself as she rolled her head back and forth, gasping as the two of them flattened the Alderaani grasses that he had studied.

She was as ready as he could make her.

Ferus slid into Leia to her welcoming moan. _This is real. I am having this now._ He thrust harder, relenting only when he bottomed out. Leia settled her arms and legs around him as lightly as if he could shatter when he buried his head on her shoulder, overcome with the truth of it all. After a moment, he remembered what was best for her and rolled over. Leia sat on him, panting, then seemed to recall something important. She shifted her focus as she croaked, "No, nono," and as suddenly as a wisp of wind could turn into a blustery thundersprite, he knew what she wanted. He bunted aside the hands that rasped between them, her fingers plucking at his crinkled hair.

"Under?" he asked. He would have laughed at her raw eagerness if he had been outside the situation, but he wasn't.

Blindly, Leia nodded, kneading his stomach for a grip.

He dragged her down onto him, laddering the camisole, straining upwards until her mouth met his. She reminded him of Senator Amidala's holonet footage, passionately arguing against the Military Defense Act. She reminded him of sparring in the salles as he parried Anakin's fire, and what happened afterward.

"Let me see you." He didn't recognize his own voice. Leia cracked open her eyes, looking away immediately. He felt her blush burn his own skin from her center all the way up to her waist, where he fingered the shredded hem of the camisole marking zigzag patterns on her soft skin. This was taking more control than he thought he possessed. Wondering at himself, Ferus pinioned Leia beneath him, being the vibrant lover as he had been so long ago.

Leia matched him. In fact, she pinched his flanks with greedy fingers, spurring him onward, encouraging each thrust which was as careful and precise as he could make it. He could go on for nearly an hour like this. It was all part of being forty-one Standard. Towards the end, he splayed her with a hand under each knee, finding new pleasure spots inside her, making her shriek. She writhed and cried his name and even though it was not his real name on her lips, it was enough. Without losing momentum, he pulled her onto his lap, his back braced against the bole of the zaela tree, her hands quivering on his shoulders. Then he turned her away from facing him, manhandling her thighs and dodging her elbows, groaning as she spun on his cock. He clamped an arm around her waist and squeezed, his belly pushing until she bent towards her knees to make room for it. Everything whited to oblivion, he hugged her smooth back to him and came.

He expended himself, forced out by her continuing pleasure, content to coax two more crests from her. It took a long time and then she was done, heaving for breath, physically spent as he'd never seen her. In an ecstasy of love, he pulled her limp form to him, cradling her, protecting her from the air that _might_ chill her and the zaela needles that _might_ prick her fair skin. The sun had moved and now the zaela tree's pollen-heavy boughs did not shelter; they were in the full light of day. Anyone could have used macrobinoculars and spied upon them.

Bail, even.

Ferus positioned himself between Leia and the view from the palace, replete with how well this afternoon played out. They must have dozed, the thrantas quiet as if to allow them a respite from reality.

IOIOIOIOIO

He stirred with a slow stretch. Leia watched him, all shyness dissolved in the sun. _She'll get sunburnt, must move._ Leia quivered as he sat up, pulling her into shade. There was that stillness that _he _had brought to her, and he was glad. for himself, too, the tension of the weeks before her departure dissolving was as if it had never been. Life was good. He lay back down beside her, breath returned to normal.

"Leia."

She stirred only her head, turning it away from him.

"Leia."

She accepted his arm as a pillow, but curled away from him onto her side, face shrouded in a mane of hair. He leaned up on one elbow, draping a length of warm brown septsilk over his cheek, savoring its fineness. Sighing out his fatigue in Leia's ear, making her shiver beside him, Ferus lost all his senses to contemplation. When he regained his place in the galaxy, sheer gratitude for his Princess' gift of herself stayed his tongue. He took a deep, cleansing inhalation to rediscover his center. From his mustache rose the power of Leia's scent. He savored it again and again, with every breath.

Leia shifted, stretching out a cramp with a little hitching sound. "Fess, I'm leaving to rejoin Senator Toric's entourage to Dac in a week," she whispered over her shoulder.

"I know." He moved and she was freed.

"_What?_ How?" Leia flipped over.

"Bail told me your plans yesterday." Coming out of post-bliss languor, he decided the term 'your father' was too uncomfortable. Besides, he scurried on, calling Bail by his given name to Bail's own daughter would make her feel more mature, an issue he Sensed she was grappling with. Barely beyond the cusp between adulthood and adolescence, Leia could use all the help he could give her, but not obvious help.

A frown marred her high, perfect brow. Ferus smoothed it. She flicked away his hand. "You two are talking about me."

And with that, the complications of their shared life intruded. Ferus rolled twenty centimeters away, the prickly zaela needles prodding him back to his normal state. "We both love you." Ferus _knew_ he'd never yet said these words to her, but Leia brushed them off as easily as his hand.

"I know that! But I am an intern of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Dac." She crossed her arms over her chest, shutting off the pleasant vista that peeked through the ruined camisole. "I'd hoped to be more independent. Now it's like nothing has changed."

"We talk about Winter, too" - _I'm sure that Winter still shows her figurative mark of the virgin on her forehead _- "she's older, but still a teen, Leia, no offense meant. Everyone in the galaxy can use a helping hand, no matter their age." _You've helped me with my Force connection and I Sense that my time to help you in a greater capacity will arrive in years to come. I can wait. _"You must have heard Bail express that at some point."

"Yes. He and my mother. It was one of her sayings, I think?" Shifting onto her stomach, Leia plucked at a hangnail, wistful. A balana thranta squawked in the distance and another answered.

Ferus pushed further into camaraderie, easing Leia away from her tension. Even to soothe her, he was unsure if he could perform again today without asking Leia to learn far too much technique. She was perfectly in sync with a sixteen's range of expertise in this arena. The distance between what she had read and what she had experienced should and would remain copious, if he had anything to say about it. Perhaps she could be lulled into taking a nap? "Breha used her regnal power better than almost anyone. She inspired all us commoners." _Breha, I swear to your memory that I'll not hurt your precious, long-awaited child._

But a nap was not to be. Leia's energy bounced back with the resilience of the young. She jerked her head up from her crossed arms, narrowing her eyes. "And how did a botanist get to know my parents so well? Father isn't acquainted with any scientists, after he fell out with Tryn Netzl." She was on her side again, propping up her head on a grubby palm. There was command in her, belying her casual pose.

Ferus trod carefully. Was their intimacy to end this soon? _Don't lecture, don't lecture, don't lecture. Things are different between us now. _"My family has known the Organas for many years, since I was a teen, myself." He dug into his backstory that Obi-Wan had helped him fabricate, of families loosely connected through a shared interest in scramball.

As he blathered on, Ferus held to his shamed persona of Fess Ilee, an athlete who lacked enough discipline to continue his physical training past an active youth, sliding into an appetite for victuals and specious gossip. After such a long time in the role, he felt Fess' presence coloring his own aura, Fess who would think it unimportant to lie to a girl to get her, if he had the gumption to go for her at all. Certainly Fess would never treasure a long-lasting relationship such as he had with Leia, as much as Ferus did. Fifteen years, Ferus thought. _I've been in her life fifteen years, longer than I knew Anakin, or Roan. _ All of a sudden, the Force flooded the park and he saw, he _absorbed_, that even a useless person such as Fess was not without value as a being, a very, very human being. With a wrench and a twist, he carded Fess away from his psyche, examining the necessary construction with a cool eye as Leia lay silent beside him. Roan remained warm and safe in memory.

As if through a dreamy, foggy scrim painted with his and Roan's last happy time together, Ferus discerned Fess as someone separate from himself, someone who dandled toddlers on a chubby knee, slacked off from his life's work over a span of years and wound up in a scene like this with his friend's daughter. The Force was simply an ideal in Fess' life; it had no texture, no grandeur or history. In his mind's eye, Leia and Fess had a spotlight on them, dimming the picture of Ferus and Roan to chiaroscuro. It hurt less than it ought to have done. He took Leia's hand, placing it on his heart.

Leia traced Ferus' scar from throat notch to a nipple. "What happened?"

"I had something inside me once. It needed to be cut out." He pulled her hand away.

She winced. "That's primitive. Where were you?"

"A primitive place." The desecrated Jedi temple, once quiet or laughing or fierce, as its tenants' moods ranged. Now it was savage, an outpost of the Empire.

"Who did it?"

_Your father. Your __**real**__ father. _"A surgeon. Very skilled with his blade, he was." Ferus sifted Leia's hair through his fingers as he asked the dead man's question: "Why me? Why today?"

Brown eyes met brown eyes, one pair earnest, one pair speculative. "You wanted me first, from that day under the tarla tree in the thundersprite. I wanted to learn how you'd be with me, how you'd be different than ... anyone else." She tapped his nose. "And now I know." Her smile turned languid. "I had a control, you see, and you are my experiment. Just like in your lesson." She turned into him, ready for whatever he had to give her. She gave back proportionally less.

_Damn it, she is smug. _Youthful curiosity. Had he ever had it? From an unknown, untested source of strength, he turned diamond-hard once more. He buried himself in her again to escape her utter honesty, and to punish her for it. She didn't seem to mind. Afterwards, as he reached out to diminish any pain she experienced, marveling at how easy his Force connection had become, he attributed his unexpected vigor to the Force, though at the time he thought it came from Leia's kisses.

At any rate and at that moment, Ferus did not miss Roan.

IOIOIOIOIO

TBC


End file.
